


Marmalade Skies

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Epistolary Romance, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Magical Healing Cunt, Safer Sex, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-05
Updated: 2007-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The clutch of gravity, and the taste of a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marmalade Skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raedbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/gifts).



> Prompt: letters in springtime.

CJ's letters are soft and intimate and _elsewhere_. They arrive from the mysterious place that is not-Sunnydale, not-England, a place not infested with teenagers and their hormones, and thus there is a certain distance already between them that belies the easy familiarity of CJ's tone, as she finds amidst her busy and top-secret days anecdotes enough to pull Giles out of his time, kairotic and overtaxed, and into hers, frenetic and top-heavy but somehow, easier to convey in words.

He knows from occasional pretenses at 'following the news' - that is, pretending that national events have the ponderous importance that pundits ascribe to them - that she is tall, and he knows from intimate acquaintance with her handwriting that she is busy, but he lacks some critical knowledge of how she moves, how she occupies space, that makes him ill-at-ease when he attempts to imagine her reading his letters. He can write half-truths of the type that might appease a lesser correspondent, anecdotes related so that feigned incompetence gives way to an equally feigned stoic heroism. He knows that CJ, practiced in spin, will not accept for a moment that this is the truth of who he is, but also that he has no desire to play any subtler game than this. As he unfolds a letter on his knee, adjusts his glasses, sips scotch, there's half a romance in his flat, the better half, that's sighs and pleasure, faint fragrance and words so artless he can feel mirrored in his own weariness the effort spent crafting their effect.

He has not told her, and has not exactly _forgotten_ but more chosen not to acknowledge, that the idea of writing to her did not _just_ occur to him, as if aging British librarians frequently had worthy insights to share with American politicians, but that it emerged suddenly and almost mystically powerfully, impossible to ignore. And in a dream, at that. In his world, this is the source of sense. In hers, it's madness, and he doesn't know why she chose to respond. He supposes he must amuse her, that she laughs over his trivialities - because, after all, what's not trivial must be closely guarded, for Buffy's sake - that she supposes she needs a moment apart from her 'important' work and that he is that moment for her, delightfully concerned with his own affectations, empty high school library and slightly daft magic shop, irrelevant to anything larger. It's a fantasy of course; he doesn't understand CJ or her motives for writing any more than she knows him, but it's pleasant, almost necessary, for him to imagine that such a creature does exist, one to whom his continued good faith is not absolutely required, one to whom his life is a little like a lark.

When Buffy dies (the second time, and the last), the compulsion to leave feels like gravity would if he were ten times heavier and lived on Jupiter. His grief is obese, morbid, dizzy. _Buffy_. Sunnydale, crypt-like even in bright sunlight, is pushing against him with all its weight, glittering weirdly with Buffy's absence, so enormous it's tangible. The sky is wrong, even in daylight, casting long shadows as a special courtesy to vampires. He's packed an overnight bag and is on hold with his travel agent before he thinks,  I should tell Willow. He _must_ tell Willow, but he can't face her or the off-balance look in her eyes, still slightly blackened, luminous.

But he stops by her house (Buffy's house) on the way to the airport and is greeted by Tara, still weak from Glory, who nonetheless greets him with a slight wave and almost-happy smile. "Willow took Dawn shopping," she tells him quietly. She lowers her voice further. "To, you know. Keep her mind off... things. Buffy." She shrugs apologetically.

"I... understand the impulse," he confesses. "I'm getting away. Just for a few days," he assures her hurriedly.

"You'll be back?"

"Of course."

Tara nods. "We'll still be here. You know. Kicking."

"Kicking?"

"Kicking ass, kicking around... still kicking. We're not going anywhere, anyhow."

There isn't a hint of malice in her voice, but Giles feels his heart twist in guilt anyhow. He bends to kiss her forehead, momentarily speechless; Tara puts her soft hands over his and holds them to her face for a moment. Then she lets him go, he murmurs, "Take care of Dawn," and he is let loose.

His head is pinned to an airplane seat as the plane rises away from California into that eerie, bewitched sky that a week ago held disaster (and a dragon) but now is filled only with tedious clouds. His neck is stiff with tension and a headache threatens to explode across his brow, but he is free, no longer _the_ adult in a world of children but _an_ adult, careening, finally, from an airport through a D.C. downpour to an address he's long since memorized, knocking on the door in a sudden, frantic rainstorm of longing.

She opens her door and blinks at him. "You must be...." She has no idea.

"Rupert Giles."

Her face expands to a smile of welcome. "Come in - dry off. You're drenched. Do you want... Scotch? Or, God, sorry. This is unexpected. Some water? Or hot tea?"

"No, thank you. I - I've had a sudden loss. I thought that - seeing you -." She's wearing a long tight skirt, rust and copper, huge bright flowers wrapped around her thighs, her buttocks, her right knee. She looks at him, up, down, drenched lapels, and he can't imagine what she sees.

"The girl?" She pauses and frowns before pulling the name from an incautious letter. "Buffy?"

He nods, and she relaxes a little, takes the seat next to his. "She was like a daughter to you," she breathes, just a hint of a question.

At this point the lie would be easier, and kinder, and no one could benefit from the truth, but he still can't tell it. "No."

"Ah..." Don't guess, he begs, and she doesn't, but hitches the skirt up above her knees, sits on his lap. "We've had enough words, don't you think?" she asks, and her smile is the widest, most welcome invitation. She could devour him. He bows his head, eyes closed. She kisses his forehead, open-mouthed -- she will leave a crimson stain. She moves, carefully, methodically, in a circle on his knee. He can feel wetness seep through her knickers, his slacks. She kisses down his cheekbone, removes and sets aside his glasses, finds his mouth with those bright lips. She draws his tongue out with the same slow, sultry movement. He lets a groan escape. Somewhere, thunder sounds.

Even if he hadn't trained himself carefully, constantly, cruelly, not to fantasize about anyone, he could never have imagined CJ, the way her body curves from upright to invitation when she bends, the way she almost playfully drags him from her living room to her bed, the slow smile that illuminates her face when she undoes his shirt, his zip, his heart, brightening the whole room until grief recedes into a distant memory and all that's real are CJ's long hands, one on his hip, the other caressing his dick through a layer of cotton. She removes his shorts without breaking the kiss, and Giles clings to her tongue on his, the slight occasional click of teeth, the softness and urgency of her lips and mouth, all new, familiar things in a recently-shattered world.

When she's around him fully, pressing him on all sides, lips and their suction, hands under his back, finding new places to soothe, and, with a groan and a twist, her legs wrapped around his in some unnatural contortion that increases the pressure (and pleasure) of her cunt around his dick.

She hasn't turned the lights out, because she's too distracted or because she wants to see him, he doesn't know or mind because he'd rather forget, tonight, that there are monsters in the dark, that vampires exist, that there are things more frightening than having to ask a grown woman, hips thrusting energetically and torso heaving in your arms, "Have you got a rubber?", a miserable afterthought. She removes herself, awkwardly, finds the condom, sheathes him, and he feels safer and at once, more naked, when she kisses the clothed tip of his dick and takes it in her mouth, sucking him for a moment that stretches to a lifetime as he writhes and claws at the bedclothes. He's ashamed to beg, even to ask, but he wants her around him again, wants the sensation of pleasure so strong it whites out every pain and memory and regret until the whole world is a blaze of orange and CJ's hair, skin, smooth and flecked with freckles. He finds her shoulder with his hand and he holds her, awkwardly, afraid the slightest touch will bring the whole unbearable weight of the past five years to rest on her. A sigh that might be the first half of a sob escapes around his dick, and she crawls, with licks and light touches, until they're kissing and fucking again, all teasing replaced with the simplicity of in-and-out, in-and-out.

The whistle of wind becomes the soft whisper of CJ's breath; the thunder becomes the thud of her heart, and the lightning only illuminates what he already knows by heart. And this romance, theirs, inkstained and spotty, a kiss on his brow, a tall woman who lives alone, bright and lithe and lonely, is (finally, only) whole.


End file.
